This might actually qualify as the dumbest online music business act of stupidity I have yet encountered. And that’s really saying something.
This is the sort of web design over which people should not only lose their jobs, but be disbarred or whatever the web equivalent of having your medical practitioner’s licence revoked might be.
RipIt.co.nz is apparently a new-ish online music store in New Zealand that has its origins in Australia, where the iPod is now all but illegal.
I say “apparently”, because they won’t let me in dressed like this. You see, I use Firefox and I refuse to install the extension that downgrades my browser to the extent that it resembles Internet Explorer.
And you there with the Mac? Piss off. We don’t like your sort either.
Thank You for visiting the Ripit Music Store. We are pleased to inform you that the Ripit Music Store is compatible with Firefox. If you are using Mozilla Firefox, please click here to view the step by step guide on how to enable Firefox to use the Ripit Music Store. If you are using a browser other than IE or Firefox, the Ripit Music Store is unfortunately not compatible with your browser. Please click here to download Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or here to download Mozilla Firefox. We regret that Ripit Music Store does not support Macintosh platform.
Morons!
Oh, and word has it that they will only let you download DRM-crippled WMA files.
Do NOT give these people your money. It makes them think that this kind of anti-consumer crap is okay. The only way they could possibly alienate more potential users of their site and make the whole thing less attractive is if they instigated some sort of voucher system that encouraged you to pre-pay, and then set it up so that your credit expired after a few months, whether you’d spent it or not.
Oh, hang on…